Tag:Regulation
Re-Regulating the Automotive Industry & the Road Ahead
A new President and a changing administration mean new priorities across some, if not all of the major executive agencies. One of the more heavily impacted industries will be transportation—specifically the automotive sector. From re-instating stricter emissions standards to moving forward with automated vehicle regulations, the automotive industry in the early 2020s should see innovation and progress at the forefront of the country’s new federal regulatory scheme.
President Biden’s COVID-19 Data-Driven Executive Order to Promote Health Equity
President Joe Biden has issued a number of Executive Orders, many of which address the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency. On January 21, 2021, President Biden released another pillar of his Administration’s long-term plan to direct the United States out of the throes of the pandemic. The twelfth Executive Order titled, “Ensuring a Data-Driven Response to COVID-19 and Future High-Consequence Public Health Threats” orders the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Secretary Alex Azar to conduct a nationwide review of the interoperability of public health data systems in an effort to enhance the collection, sharing, analysis, and collaboration of de-identified patient data.
Market Regulation Issues Raised by the Gamestop Buying Frenzy
The regulation of hedge funds has largely been unchecked allowing big Wall Street players to manipulate the market for the benefit and at the detriment of other investors. But forced by an unprecedented movement of retail investors, Wall Street is being forced to reckon with the hypocrisy of their practices.
The Lack of Support the Payment Protection Program Has Given to Restaurants
We are now in the heart of winter, and many restaurants have not made it since Covid first shut-down Chicago in March 2020. When dining resumed in June, it came back as outdoor only. However the fear was, what would happen once it cooled down and outdoor dining wasn’t feasible? Chicago, like many other cities, has had to be creative and many restaurants have made it work. From dining igloos and greenhouses, to shutting down streets for more patio space, Chicago has been very creative. For the restaurants that have managed to survive, it has not been an easy path. The restaurant industry has been hit especially hard compared to other businesses, and they are not receiving the same protections and support as other industries. The Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) was designed to support small businesses, however restaurants have not been protected as they should have been.
Bitcoin, Tesla, and GameStop: Regulatory Challenges Posed by the New Retail Investor
GameStop started 2021 with a stock price below $20 but saw its stock price skyrocket to well above $300 a share towards the end of January. The rally would be hard to explain by solely relying on the company’s financial reports or underlying fundamentals. Instead, the rally has to be explained through a combination of external factors involving a popular fintech company’s app, manic speculation by retail investors, and Reddit. Although at first glance this may seem like a new phenomenon, the same factors have been at play for years with a huge interest in Tesla and Bitcoin – and they pose a risk to the markets that regulators and Wall Street together can’t ignore.
Vertical Healthcare Companies Merging Compliance Programs
Vertical Healthcare Companies Merging Compliance Programs Perri Nena Smith Senior Editor Loyola University Chicago School of Law, JD 2021 In 2020, The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) released guidelines for vertical mergers to give clarity to companies so they can avoid harmful mergers. Healthcare companies are an industry that has been …
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Investing in Income Sharing: Why Regulators Should Pay Attention to the Innovative Set Up Now
As of November 8, 2020, the student debt crisis reached $1,769,280,155,524. There’s no easy way to address a $1.7 trillion problem and the increasing cost of higher education, coupled with the necessity of a four-year degree, will only exacerbate the issue. From 2000 to 2016, the average annual cost of college more than doubled, from around $15,000 a year to nearly $32,000. The New York Fed most recently identified a phenomenon acknowledging that when you flood the marketplace with subsidies, like grants, loans, etc., it enables higher education to continue to raise prices. For every dollar of new public subsidy, prices for college have risen between 60 and 70 cents. There are a number of proposals as to how to address this crisis – from federal statutes to private intervention – but income sharing agreements (ISAs) have largely been left out of the conversation. ISAs are not without criticism, particularly because of concerns about excessive interest. However, many of the criticisms could and should be addressed by comprehensive regulation, as any other type of lending has been. ISAs will likely be part of the future solutions of financing education and, as a result, regulators need to pay attention.
How Federal Data Privacy Regulation Could Help Curb the COVID-19 Pandemic
It cannot be denied that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to many novel legal and regulatory issues. One topic of major concern both domestically and abroad is how to manage the massive amounts of consumer data being collected in the attempt to quell the spread of the virus. This issue is especially complicated to address in the United States, where a convoluted patchwork of state and federal laws interact to create a relentlessly fragmented data regulation system. Now, as state and local governments, along with tech giants like Apple and Google, continue to roll out contact tracing applications, the need for comprehensive data privacy regulation is more pressing than ever.
Business Interruption Insurance Coverage During COVID-19 Era
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, state and local municipalities have issued emergency proclamations requiring small businesses to either shut down or limit their business operations. This has caused small businesses to suffer substantial profit losses. In response, small businesses have filed business interruption claims with their insurance providers to recover their profit losses. However, insurance companies have mostly rejected their insureds’ business interruption claims because there has not been a direct physical loss or damage to the insureds’ properties, which is required to grant business interruption coverage. Businesses have been forced to file lawsuits against their insurers, hoping that the courts will compel insurance companies to provide business interruption coverage to their insureds during the pandemic. Business owners have also asked their elected officials to intervene and help them by passing legislation that would require insurance companies to provide business interruption coverage.
What Dining In Chicago Will Look Like This Winter
It is clear that COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon. Cases today are skyrocketing and that means restrictions like we had at the beginning of this pandemic are likely to follow. Since March, Chicago has had an array of different orders and guidelines they have followed both from the City of Chicago and from Governor J.B. Pritzker. In May, Chicago announced the “Protecting Chicago” framework which set out five phases depending on COVID numbers to guide citizens on what re-opening Chicago would look like. With the warm weather behind us, what does this mean for the future of dining for the rest of 2020?